Hobbies
Rubik's cube
A cube at 11, a week without tutorials, then competitions.
Corner-on, a cube is a hexagon. A few dimensions up, it's a wormhole.
When I was 11, my father bought me a Rubik's cube. I spent four hours trying to solve it, and I did. Then I worked on it for a week with no tutorials, until I could solve it in three minutes.
After that I moved on to learning real algorithms.
The method
I only ever used one method, solving layer by layer, and it's the one that took me to competition:
- White cross
- First-layer corners
- Second layer
- Top face fully yellow
- Top-layer edges
I used around 30 standard, published algorithms, and maybe 100 of my own.
That method got me down to around 25 seconds in competition; the fastest single on my official record is 27.05 seconds. My quickest time at home was 12 seconds.
Competitions
In 2014 I competed at four official World Cube Association competitions: Melbourne Winter 2014, Lifestyle Seasons Winter 2014 in Melbourne, the Australian Nationals in Sydney, and Sydney Spring 2014. My 3x3 average came down from 46.81 seconds at the first to 33.55 at the last, and I made the Pyraminx final in Melbourne.
- 3x3x3 cube27.05best single · average 33.55
- 2x2x2 cube6.75best single · average 8.20
- Pyraminx18.06best single · in the final
- 3x3x3 one-handed1:16.00best single · Nationals
My full results on the World Cube Association site
My friend Tommy, younger than me, was excellent even then. He now solves it in 5 seconds.